Homily of Cardinal Tagle during Mass for Walk for Life 2019

Homily delivered by Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio G. Cardinal Tagle during Mass for the third Walk for Life 2019 held at the Quezon Memorial Circle in Quezon City, on February 16, 2019, from 4 a.m. to 8 a.m.

We thank God for bringing us together on this beautiful day. Let us give the Lord praise and thanksgiving, for life-giving creation and we thank God for this opportunity again to be one community proclaiming to the world that life is God’s gift and that we should treasure it and as a community we also receive the mission we accept the mission to celebrate life, to nurture it, to defend it, to promote it.

Photo by Tsard Pascoguin

At nakakatuwa po napansin ko po ngayong taong ito parang maraming kabataan, kasi ‘Year of the Youth’. To the youth, I hope your participation today is not just because the year is dedicated to you. Let this be part of your growing-up years and memory. Sana maipasa niyo ito sa inyong mga anak at mga apo na taon-taon hintayin itong Walk for Life, kasi mga kabataan, darating din ang panahon na tatanda tayo at hayaan natin na ipamana sa susunod na henerasyon itong pagpapahalaga sa buhay. I’m sure you have heard many beautiful testimonies and challenges. I would just like to propose additional thoughts based on the readings of today and the memorial of our Blessed Mother.

When we talk of life, our instinct is to look at the origin, of course, God the giver of life. Life is a gift to be appreciated. It is not a commodity to be manipulated. It is a gift from the tender love of God. Just like the compassion of Jesus in the Gospel. Jesus says, my heart is moved with compassion for the crowd that is the heart of God. That is the heart, that is the fitting of origin of life. Life as a gift of love and compassion and that mystery of God’s movement His tender love and compassion take on flesh, living flesh in the womb of a mother.

There cannot be any walk for life that doesn’t at the same time affirm the dignity, humanity of every woman chosen by God to be the human expression of God’s tender compassion and love, the love that gives life. Sinapupunan ng ina. Sino po dito ang mga ina? Dakila po kayo! Sino ang mga spiritual mothers? Dakila rin kayo!

Maybe we could start thinking of those communities, BEC’s also as wombs that are supposed to spaces places of compassion, tenderness, and love and in the family most especially we don’t only transmit physical biological life. In the Bible, it is in the family that the life of faith is also nurtured and transmitted. Ang pananampalataya ay bahagi sa buhay. Ang pagkilala sa Diyos, pagtalima sa Diyos yan ay buhay din na sana sa sinapupunan ng pamilya lahat tayo lalo na ang kabataan ay napalalago.

So, today let our families and other communities that play the role of families to commit themselves to be the nurturing spaces of life and especially the life faith, life of decency, the life of values. Kasama yan sa pinangangalagaan, dinidiligan at ipinapasa na buhay.

And the third womb is the wider society. Ang ating lipunan ay sana maging isang sinapupunan na nagbibigay buhay at hindi nag-aakasaya ng buhay. But we have to do our share in making society such a tender compassionate womb where life will flourish where the promise of Jesus life in abundance could really happen.

In the Gospel we find Jesus moved with compassion for the crowds who have nothing to eat and so feeding, sharing comes from a heart that is tender. A heart that empathizes and we hope that our society will have a heart that beats with empathy. A society that is a womb that is alert to the hungers, the thirst, the misery of peoples and not just from the external observance of some rules and obligations but from the heart, really moved with compassion.

And then look at how Jesus transformed that place of hunger, of tiredness into the womb of life. Ang isang lugar ng kagutuman, ng kapaguran, ginawa ni Hesus na sinapupunan ng buhay. Simple lang naman ang ginawa niya. Ilan ba ang tinapay, ang meron kayo how many loaves do you have, seven. The apostles, the disciples were calculating, you have four thousand people, seven loaves, if you calculate, how can you feed four thousand with seven loaves?

And it is a disservice not only to the society but to creation. A creation that generously, that takes care of us is not able to do its mission because of the hands. Hands that do not thank God, that do not break bread, that do not distribute. Sana ang ating lipunan maging sinapupunan na nagbibigay buhay dahil ang mga kamay ay mapagbigay, hindi mapagkamkam.

Darating ulit ang eleksyon, sana ang Walk for Life ay maging walk to have in our society a womb where the people, the community, the leaders would all share…sharing hands. Wala ng kamay na mapagkamkam, wala ng kamay na basta na ako’y busog ay wala na akong pakialam kung kayo ay gutom hindi ganun ang sinapupunan ng isang Ina. But we have to participate, sana po kayong lahat pagkatapos nito, start walking so that our society will be a real womb of tenderness, of love and sharing the way Jesus wants our society to be and creation will not get tired. Creation will not be depleted. Creation will not be the rate. In fact, creation will be able to do its mission to support life itself. Because ang mga kamay ng tao ay mapagbigay, mapagkalinga.

The mother’s womb, the womb of the family, the womb of society. Sana po katulad ng Mahal na Ina, the model of the church, ang ating simbahan, ang ating sambayanang Kristiyano may really be also a womb of tenderness and love where life is celebrated, life is shared and life becomes a gift not only of God to us but our gift to society and to humanity.

Let us pause, and thank God for life and for the mission to nurture it, promote it, defend it and share it. (Radio Veritas / RCAM-AOC)